Navy Beans and Poached Squirrel

I still have not set up my reloading press. I made a platform for it yesterday, but I haven’t followed through. I plan to get on it shortly.

I thought I would say something about the epidemic, since I have been writing about it for so long. Today, again, the infection rate is dropping. At least that’s what’s happening according to the Johns Hopkins graph page, which I have linked to in the past.

The rate at which the rate is dropping seems to be slowing at the moment, but bumps are to be expected.

Toilet paper is still unavailable online, unless you order questionable Chinese coronavirus scam paper, or you get really lucky, or you pay some low-life 5 times what the paper is worth.

At some point, the expense and trouble make using the curtains an intelligent choice.

I can’t figure the toilet paper problem out. I was wrong to think the problem would only last a couple of weeks. I read that factories would keep churning it out, and I figured people could only continue buying three dozen rolls per day for a short time. I figured online sources would rebound quickly because they could limit per-person orders and no one could go in and clean them out.

Still, the paper is hard to find during reasonable shopping hours, and online sources are useless. I check because I get bored.

I saw someone trying to explain it online. The theory was that people were using home-quality paper instead of commercial-quality. They make you stay home, you can’t use the toilet at work, and you end up using ridiculous fluffy paper with baby ducks stamped on it instead of the military-looking stuff. Somehow or other, increasing the demand for fluffy paper threw things out of whack.

I don’t believe it. I never used that stuff, and I still can’t find the kind I buy. Not online. I can’t find anything that isn’t Chinese or overpriced. Several months from now, this could become a problem. I’ll have to get up early and get to the store before the hoarders, and I may have to have a late breakfast. This is how you get toilet paper. Be at the store when it opens. While you’re there, make sure you use the can. Free is free.

I think the explanation is a crock. If the only problem were the difficulty of making fluffy paper, we would be able to buy non-fluffy paper, and we’re not. The problem is that people are still buying every roll they see. The system, which isn’t designed for a 2000% increase in demand, is just not built to cope with it.

If people don’t get over it, some morning in July, I will have to be at Winn-Dixie as soon as the special old-people-only shopping hour is over.

Manufacturers are ramping production up, and distribution, contrary to what some people claim, is not out of commission due to the the millions of dead truck drivers who can’t show up for work. They don’t exist. More people have died from the flu this year.

It’s amazing how people think there are overflowing hospitals and bodies on sidewalks. Does anyone actually read the news?

I still don’t know a single person who has coronavirus or who has mentioned a relative or loved one who has it.

There are STILL STILL STILL no major celebrities who have died! Inexplicable! But there are celebrities who are trying to capitalize, and I don’t just mean the ones who are virtue-signaling and trying to tell us what to do on social media. Bill Cosby, Michael Avenatti, Bernie Madoff, R. Kelly, and Julian Assange are all trying to get released so they can avoid the virus.

Here’s how out of the loop I am: I had no idea Avenatti, Kelly, and Assange were incarcerated. I’m thrilled to see how little I know about such things.

I have to read up on Avenatti. That guy is not to be believed. Is he still posting cocky Tweets? When it comes to denial and lack of remorse, he rivals the pre-conviction Harvey Weinstein. I feel sorry for him. I’m astounded by what he did to his life.

In other news, I’ve escalated my own fight against COVID-19. Having heard that quinine will keep me well, I have committed to having a gin and tonic every day, no matter how difficult it is to choke it down. It’s definitely working. I started two days ago, and I’m as healthy as a horse.

I found a very nice brand of tonic water: Q. I’ll bet Patrick Stewart drinks it. Is there really any quinine in it? Observe my symptom-free status and judge for yourself. That’s science, right there.

I didn’t realize how nice a G&T could be. A good mixer really helps. It makes me want to buy cinchona powder–the source of quinine–and make my own tonic. Summer is coming.

There’s a good chance my resolve will fail when my 4-pack of tonic is gone, but I might want one or two G&T’s later this year.

I believe you would have to buy something like a pound of cinchona bark in order to get a therapeutic quinine dose every day for a couple of weeks. I was curious, and I checked. For malaria, you take 200 mg per day. That adds up to 4 grams of cinchona, so one ounce per week.

Okay, you have to have two or three ounces. Still a lot.

Now that the known rate of COVID-19 here is above one in 3,000, I have to admit I think more (i.e. a little bit) about protecting myself. I think about that with the flu, too. I really hate getting sick. I’ve been pretty bold about running errands. Will I still be this brave if we get up to one in 100? That would probably mean the real rate was more like 10%. The world would be a sea of cooties.

Here’s something I wonder about: what do single people do for food when they get sick? When I had pink eye, I still went to buy groceries, taking what precautions I could. Would I do the same thing if I thought I had coronavirus? Would I have a choice? I guess I could order food. I don’t know if I could eat Domino’s for three weeks. It’s hard enough to eat it once.

I bought two bags of navy beans. I wasn’t afraid stores would run out of food and leave me starving. I was afraid hoarders would buy all the navy beans in existence and that I would not be able to get them again until after the harvest. I don’t know how the bean supply chain works. I really like to have beans with cornbread occasionally.

I guess that with those beans and a canister of oatmeal, I could get through a week of quarantine without crippling constipation. Beans by themselves would be worse than coronavirus. Those things can lodge in your system for days, doing what beans do the whole time.

When the week was up, I would have to poach squirrels, in both senses of the word.

No, I guess I could still use drive-throughs.

I have some .38 Super brass soaking in water and citric acid. I should take them out and work on the press.

If I die, the first one here gets the toilet paper. It’s in the master bath in a cabinet. Sorry it doesn’t have baby ducks printed on it. This is what happens when men do the shopping.